Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

Jayatilaka Cudah Ratwatte

Adigar The Mahâ Adigâr ( si, මහා අධිකාරම්) (also known as Adikārama, Adikār) was a Great Officer in the Amātya Mandalaya, or Sinhalese Council of State, in the Sinhalese Kingdoms of monarchical Sri Lanka. The office was sec ...

(15 March 1880 – 27 March 1940) was a

Ceylonese Sri Lankan or Ceylonese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Sri Lanka * A person from Sri Lanka, see Demographics of Sri Lanka ** Sinhalese people, the ethnic majority ** Sri Lankan Tamils, an ethnic minority ** Sri L ...

colonial-era politician and headman. He was a member of the

State Council of Ceylon The State Council of Ceylon was the unicameral legislature for Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), established in 1931 by the Donoughmore Constitution. The State Council gave universal adult franchise to the people of the colony for the first time. It r ...

(1931–1933), the first elected

Mayor of Kandy The mayor of Kandy is the mayor and head of the Kandy Municipal Council. The post was created in 1866 when the Kandy Municipal Council established by the ''Municipalities Ordinance of 1865''. The offices of the mayor are at the Kandy Town Hall. ...

(1939–40), the first person from Kandy to be awarded a

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

from the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and was appointed to the post of

. Born to Abeyratne Banda Ratwatte Basnayake and Thalgahagoda Lewke Punchi née Kumarihamy, he was educated at

Trinity College, Kandy "Look to the End" , mottoes = , founder = John Ireland Jones , established = , type = Independent Private , affiliation = Church of Ceylon, Anglican , grade ...

. His brothers were

Barnes Ratwatte Barnes Ratwatte (''known as Barnes Ratwatte Dissawa '') (1883 – 20 September 1957) was a Ceylonese colonial-era legislator and a headman. He was a member of the State Council and the Senate of Ceylon. He was appointed to the posts of Rate Maha ...

Dissawa The Mahâ Dissâvas was a Great Officer in the Amātya Mandalaya, or Sinhalese Council of State, in the Sinhalese Kingdoms of monarchical Sri Lanka. Like many of the existing high offices at the time it had combined legislative and judicial ...

and

Harris Leuke Ratwatte Wijewardena Seneviratne Panditha Abeykoon Bandaranayake Wahala Mudiyanselage Harris Leuke Ratwatte (known as ''Harris Leuke Ratwatte'') (1900–1964) was a Ceylonese legislator. He was a member of the State Council of Ceylon, Parliament and the S ...

both members of the

. He was the uncle of Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike. In 1908 he married Chitravo Katugaha née Kumarihamy, with whom he had ten children including his eldest son, A. C. L. Ratwatte

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(1909–1971), who also served as the Mayor Kandy (1948), Ceylon's High Commissioner in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

(1965) and Ceylon's Ambassador to Malaysia, Stanley Ratwatte and J. C. Ratwatte II. Cudah Ratwatte served as the Shroff of the Mercantile Bank of Kandy. On 4 May 1931, Ratwatte was elected unopposed to the

1st State Council of Ceylon The 1st State Council of Ceylon was a meeting of the State Council of Ceylon, with the membership determined by the results of the 1931 state council election held between 13 and 20 June 1931. The parliament met for the first time on 7 July 1931 ...

, representing

Balangoda Balangoda is a large town in Ratnapura District, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka, governed by an urban council located away from Colombo and from Ratnapura on Colombo - Batticaloa Highway(A4). It is one of the largest towns of the Sabaragamuw ...

. He resigned from the State Council on 1 August 1933 due to ill-health. In 1939 he was granted a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...

in the

New Year Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...

list for public services in Ceylon. At the first meeting of the

Kandy Municipal Council The Kandy Municipal Council (Sinhala language, Sinhala: මහනුවර මහ නගර සභා ''Mahanuwara Maha Nagara Sabha'') is the Politics of Sri Lanka#Local government structure, local council for Kandy, the second largest city and ...

on 17 June 1939 Ratwatte was elected the

, a position he retained for a year. Ratwatte died on 27 March 1940 after a short illness.

External links

The Ratwatte Ancestry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ratwatte, Cuda 1880s births 1940 deaths Sri Lankan Buddhists Adigar Sinhalese politicians Knights Bachelor Alumni of Trinity College, Kandy Mayors of Kandy Members of the 1st State Council of Ceylon Cudah

See also

External links

References